


Hard to Come By

by sevenfists



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-20
Updated: 2006-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-24 09:57:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10739361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfists/pseuds/sevenfists
Summary: Their second morning in Virginia, Dean wakes up with a sour taste in his mouth and a fierce pain between his eyebrows, like somebody's in there trying to bust their way out with a sledgehammer. Or a power drill.





	Hard to Come By

Their second morning in Virginia, Dean wakes up with a sour taste in his mouth and a fierce pain between his eyebrows, like somebody's in there trying to bust their way out with a sledgehammer. Or a power drill. It's barely light out. Dean staggers to the bathroom. In the mirror, his reflection has a black eye, a cut lip, and a hickey right below the left ear. He jerks off in the shower.

Sam is still sleeping when he gets out. Dean walks to the convenience store across the street, buys junk food and coffee.

"Anything else?" the cashier asks, snapping her gum, and Dean almost says no before he changes his mind and asks for a pack of Camels.

He lights up in the car, later. "You don't smoke," Sam says, and Dean says, "What's it look like I'm doing?" The cigarette tastes like ass. He smokes it anyway, tapping the ash out the open window. It's August. Sam turns up the air conditioning. Dean turns it back down.

"I think we should talk to the uncle first," Sam says. "I think there's something he isn't telling us."

"Eat your goddamn Ho-Ho and leave the smart thinking to me," Dean says. Sam sulks for a while, face pressed to the window. Dean lights another cigarette.

***

The uncle, Ricky, is barely out of adolescence, still pimply and fuzzy-cheeked. He's either dumb or lying, Dean isn't sure which. Maybe both.

"I sure do miss that girl," he says. "We got along real well, me and her."

"Do you think she might have run away?" Sam asks. He's doing the whole sympathetic-listener thing. Dean's eating Tic-Tacs and watching Ricky's shifty eyes.

"Hell, I don't see why she woulda," Ricky says. "Mandy and her momma and her brother were always real close."

"No boyfriend problems or anything?"

"Her brother wouldn't let anyone date her," Ricky laughs. "Can't really blame him."

"The day she disappeared - did you see her at all? Was there anything strange going on?"

Ricky sticks a finger inside his ear, roots around a bit. "Yeah, I saw her. She was going to the store. Nothing unusual about that. Hate to tell y'all this, cause I know you're trying to help, but it's just a mystery to all of us. Ain't got a clue where she's got to or why. Like I said, seems like somebody snatched her."

"Well, thanks for your time," Dean says, and starts to hold out his hand before reconsidering. Ricky's earwax is not something he needs to have close contact with.

"Sure thing," Ricky says. "I hope y'all find her."

"He doesn't seem too concerned about her," Sam says as they walk out to the car.

"Yeah, but I don't think he's hiding anything, either. Just some dumb-fuck backwoods hick," Dean says. He tosses Sam the keys. "Let's go back to the motel. Full moon's tomorrow, we need to get on this."

Sam starts up the car. "You know, if Mandy's disappearance _is_ connected to the werewolf, she's probably dead by now."

"Yeah," Dean says, "I know." He cracks his neck. "Fuck. I hope we find this bastard soon. Last thing I need to see is another chewed-up body."

***

The werewolf turns out to be Mandy.

It's an unpleasant surprise for everyone involved. They don't manage to find her by the night of the full moon, which annoys the hell out of Dean, but in town the next day there's talk of one of the farmers shooting a huge-ass dog.

"Just winged it, from what I hear," their waitress says. "Got it in the paw or something. Could be dead by now, I reckon."

It isn't, though. Sam has a vision over breakfast that leads them straight to Mandy. She's alive, living in a crumbling piece-of-shit hut way the hell back in the woods - probably used to be a hunter's shack or something. She isn't pleased to see them. Dean isn't too pleased either: she's got a bloody scrap of cloth wrapped around her left hand, and it's clear what's going to have to happen.

"I ain't going back with you," Mandy says, sounding panicky. "I don't - what if I - "

"It's okay, Mandy," Sam says in that soothing voice of his. "We're here to help you."

"Sam, can I talk to you for a minute?" Dean jerks his head toward the door of the shack.

"We'll be just a moment, Mandy, wait right here," Sam says, and smiles at her, and follows Dean outside. They walk to the edge of the clearing.

"We're going to have to kill her, you know," Dean says, pitching his voice low, keeping one eye on the hut. Sam's not going to like it, but there isn't another option, and that's just all there is to it.

Sam doesn't like it. "She's fifteen. We can't do it."

"She's a werewolf, Sam! She might look all sweet and innocent right now, but when the next full moon rolls around, she's going to kill somebody else. You really want that blood on your hands?"

"I don't want hers on me, either."

Dean rubs his face. "You think I _do_? Sometimes you just have to do things that don't sit well with you, it's part of the goddamn job."

"Don't _sit well_ with me?" Sam lets out a sharp burst of noise, like laughter but not happy. "This is more than just 'not sitting well,' Dean, this is _immoral_ , we can't go around killing _children_ \- "

"She's not just a child!" Dean yells. He turns away from Sam, presses the heel of his hand into his left eye until he sees swirls of light. "I don't know what part of 'werewolf' you don't understand," he says, quieter, "but she _will_ eat more people unless we put her down."

"You make it sound like she's a rabid dog," Sam says.

"She's a hell of a lot more dangerous than that. You really want to explain to Mr. Simmons why the thing that killed his wife is still alive?"

"I don't think it's right," Sam says, voice full of conviction; but he won't make eye contact. They stand there for a moment or two, Sam fidgeting a little, Dean watching Mandy's hut.

"Fuck it," Dean says. He checks his pistol. "If you're too much of a pussy, I'll do it myself."

"Go to hell, Dean," Sam says, and walks off in the direction of the car.

Dean does it himself: one silver bullet to the heart. Mandy doesn't make any noise, doesn't even flinch when he takes aim, but Dean will be hearing the sound of that single shot in his dreams for a good long while to come. He salts down the corpse and burns it, just to be safe.

Sam's slouched in the passenger seat of the car, listening to his iPod. "You have fun?" he asks when Dean opens the driver's side door.

It's all Dean can do to keep from punching the little bastard in the face.

***

It's past 8:00 by the time they pick up their Chinese food get back to the motel. Dean's filthy and tired, and all he wants to do is take a shower, eat dinner, and go to bed. They'll head out of town tomorrow.

Of course, given his luck, the air conditioning in their motel room isn't working. The man at the front desk says there's nothing he can do, repairman's coming out tomorrow. They go back to their room in defeat.

"It's fucking hot," Sam says.

"Thanks for that quick-witted observation, Sherlock," Dean says.

"Shut up," Sam says, and starts stripping down. Dean peeks over the top edge of his newspaper. When Sam gets down to his boxers, he keeps going, pulls them off too. Dean swallows and goes back to reading Ann Landers.

"I'm going to bed," Sam says. Dean doesn't look up from his paper. Sam flops face-down on top of the covers and is asleep in about thirty seconds.

Dean forces himself to finish the paper. Then he watches Sam for a while: the curve of his shoulders and ass; the shadowed weight of his balls, crinkled and soft. Sam shifts in his sleep, moans a little, and Dean jerks guiltily.

"Christ," he says out loud, and goes to take a shower. It's possible he's thinking of Sam when he wraps his hand around his dick. Maybe.

***

The next town they hit is in Tennessee. There's a crazy-ass poltergeist haunting the public library, and they spend a whole day tracking the goddamn thing through the stacks. It tosses Dean around a whole lot and his arm almost comes out of the socket at one point, but that doesn't stop him from pumping the bastard full of rock salt and exorcising the fuck out of its bitch ass.

Dean's shoulder hurts and he's irritable, but Sam's in high spirits on the drive back, laughing and teasing Dean, hopped up on adrenaline or whatever. As soon as Dean locks the door of the motel room behind them, he grabs the front of Sam's shirt, pulls his head down into a kiss.

Sam's mouth is wet and hot, and he's kissing Dean back, running his tongue over Dean's lower lip, running his hands down Dean's back. Dean slides a hand down the back of Sam's jeans. "Yeah, yeah, Sam - "

Sam shoves him away, hard and sudden. Dean slams back against the door. It hurts like a bitch; he must've wrenched his shoulder worse than he thought.

"We aren't doing this again, Dean," Sam says, his voice low and rough. "It was a mistake. You don't - it isn't normal."

"You started it, Sammy." Dean tilts his head so Sam can see the bite-mark on his neck, still visible. "That's all you, baby boy."

"Well, I'm ending it," Sam says. He's flushed, panting, clearly turned on - but saying no, turning Dean away.

"How will I go on," Dean says sarcastically. He grabs his jacket off the chair. "I'm going out. Don't wait up."

Sam doesn't. By the time Dean gets back, it's 3:00 in the morning and Sam's passed out, his mouth slightly open. Dean doesn't sleep that night. He sits on the curb outside their room and chain-smokes until the sun comes up.  



End file.
